I’m not sure how I missed this Kathy, although my gravatar is there – surely I would’ve wished you a happy birthday?? Strange! Anyway – Happy Belated 44th Birthday and I hope you had a wonderful day.
Your lessons are thought-provoking, but I have an issue with no.17 🙂 I have found that some people don’t always reciprocate and sometimes end up as doormats – but then that’s my observation (which is very close to home), but in general maybe it does work …:)

As far as 17, what helped me is to realize that you might not receive love and compassion from the same source to which you gave it. It’s not always a reciprocal case because quite honestly, many people do not have love and compassion to give back.

This is why service has been a great thing for me. It’s a way for me to provide love and compassion to “strangers,” who are typically people that cannot or will not give anything in return.

I’ll add this though, if you’re giving love and compassion to someone in hopes they’ll return the favor, then you might become a doormat. This is where I’ve had to learn to release expectations to people and check the reason why I’m doing something for someone.

How very gracious of you re accepting birthday wishes! Do you have a cut-off point?! lol

Absolutely about the rest! My particular case was observing someone being treated very badly all the time despite all the love that was shown to the person ill-treating her. But as you so rightly say, generally showing love, compassion etc is karmic and what you give out, you surely receive back, often tenfold.

Happy Belated Birthday! Your post reminds me of the Serenity Prayer. There’s so much in the world that we can’t control but when we do what is within our Power we can change our own world. I hope you had a beautiful and blessed day! 🙂

Ah! I love these lessons! Though they are easy to recognize, they can be so difficult to accept!The “You can’t make people like you” point is particularly difficult for me to accept but I’m working on it! You’d think by being your true self and being kind to others that they would like you, but we know this isn’t always the case.

Thanks so much Celina! I’m glad you enjoyed them. I agree. I’ve spent quite a bit of life just trying to figure out how to get people to like me, when the reality is, you can’t lol I will say that once you really learn to be your true self, then you’ll attract those people who you won’t need to convince to like you 😉 And miraculously, all others won’t matter as much.

Kathy, a belated Happy Birthday! I hope you had a lovely time celebrating…or are you waiting until this weekend? The list still stands strong and I like your addition. ‘Fear nothing’ – yikes, that’s a tall order!